Kirsten Tambling is an art historian specializing in 18th-century art.
Kirsten Tambling writes and lectures on 18th-century art, the history of collections, and the intersection of art and psychiatry. In 2018, she was co-curator of the exhibition “James Henry Pullen: Inmate, Inventor, Genius” at Watts Gallery. Based in London, she completed her PhD at Birkbeck, University of London, on the art of Jean-Antoine Watteau and William Hogarth.
Tambling traces the historical use of hematite crayons (red chalk), from the anatomical drawings of the Renaissance to Gainsborough's landscapes to Rossettiʼs redheads.
Labelled a “cretin” and “imbecile” in his lifetime, the Swiss artist Gottfried Mind had profound talents when it came to drafting the feline form. Kirsten Tambling reconstructs the biography of this elusive figure, whose savant-like qualities inspired later French Realists, early psychiatric theorists, and Romantic visions of the artist as outsider.
Tambling surveys the phenomenon of the 90s romcom à la Richard Curtis (Four Weddings and a Funeral), linking it to the burgeoning of neoliberalism under Bill Clinton and Tony Blair.
Why is Lego the most ingenious toy in the world? This question is put to the eponymous protagonist of Jostein Gaarder’s Sophie’s World, a novel introducing teenagers to philosophy. The answer – that the little plasticbricks can be endlessly reconfigured – introduces Sophie to Democritus, the Greek philosopher who believed (as indeed do physicists today) that everything is made up of tiny and eternal particles called atoms.
In 2013, Tambling was co-editor (with Laura Seymour) of the poetry and fiction anthology Lines Underwater, re-imagining mermaids for the twenty-first century.
Contributors, in order of appearance: William Kherbek, Christopher Brown, Rebecca Gethin, Tony Winn, Katie Hale, Andrew Howell, C.R. Resetarits, Jennifer Brough, Jeanette Stevenson, Ieuan Edwards, Sara Eliot, Agnes Marton, Cheri Allcock, Piotr Cieplak, Karen Tang, Kirsten Tambling, Sarah McKee, Sue Wood, Christopher Mulrooney, Nicola Moorhouse, Phoebe Power, Polly Atkin, Andrew Souter, Bernd Sauermann, Kate Noakes, Ron Carey, Michele Brenton, Charlotte Higgins, Claire Trévien, Luciana Francis, Marie Naughton, Adam Steiner, Hilary Hares, Virginie Colline, Debby Akam, Jo Stanley, Meredith Knowles, Philip Burton, Chelsea Cargill, Jessica Taylor, and Ella Risbridger.
Hodge the cat has developed a cult following to rival his owner, Samuel Johnson. His likeness stands outside Johnsonʼs house in Gough Square and attracts visitors from all over the world.
This book covers what we know for sure about the enigmatic Hodge, and then moves on to expertly assess what what else we might surmise. In the process it tracks an anecdotal history of cats and catkeeping up to Johnsonʼs day, when our relationship with cats stood on the threshold of a profound change.
Find out about our exhibition co-Curator, Kirsten Tamblingʼs, favorite piece in the 2018 exhibition at Watts Gallery, “James Henry Pullen: Inmate, Inventor, Genius.”
Confined in insane asylums nearly his entire life, Pullen became occupied in creating extraordinary designs, gigantic articulated puppets, detailed drawings, fantastical kites, and models of boats from a specially converted studio-room—escaping his cell through his art.
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A written portrait of Maurice Quentin de La Tour, who painted some of the most notable people of his age.